Some sneakers demand attention. The Air Jordan 3 hasn’t needed to do that for years. This silhouette has held its place at the top of the food chain for so long that a new colorway really only has one thing to prove: that it lives up to the name. “Cardinal Red” does that in about two seconds.
White tumbled leather covers the entire upper, paired with the gray elephant print on the toe and heel that made the 3 world-famous. Beneath it, a cardinal-red band runs through the midsole before rising up the back into the collar. The Jumpman on the tongue is a warm orange, as are the eyelets the laces pass through. Four colors, and not one of them clashes with the others.
It’s all about the balance
Red is a color that can easily take over a sneaker. Use too much of it and you no longer have a white shoe with a red accent—you simply have a red shoe. Here, it’s limited to the midsole and collar lining. Just enough to make the white pop, and restrained enough to wear without having to build your entire outfit around it.
Take a look at the back, too. Beside the red collar lining is a perforated white panel, with the elephant print rising up from the heel. Once you’re wearing the shoe, only a sliver of that red is visible. That exact sliver is what completes the look. That’s how the 3 usually works: it’s never the large panels that make the difference, but the edges.
The rest is classic 3 anatomy, just as Tinker Hatfield designed it. You can see the Air unit sitting in its window at the heel. The outsole is finished in cement gray, keeping the bottom understated while things get a little more interesting up top. It’s a shoe you recognize from a meter away, but only truly appreciate up close.
Wearable—and that’s not a given
Many colorways of this model are so distinctive that they dictate your entire outfit. This one doesn’t. White with cement gray is about as calm a foundation as you can get, while the red sits low enough to almost disappear beneath a pair of straight-leg jeans. Want to show it off instead? Roll up the hem once and you’re done. That makes this a 3 you’ll actually take out of the box instead of keeping it stored away.
The hype is still building
In our Hypescore, this pair sits in the ATOMIC tier, the highest stage on the scale. For a release from February 2022, that’s no coincidence. The Air Jordan 3 is one of those shapes that holds on to its energy instead of giving it away. While most colorways fade into the background after a year, this one is still firmly in the mix.
You can see that reflected in the market. The retail price was 200 euros. Right now, active listings range from around 214 euros to over 500 euros across nine shops. Nine sellers, nine different ideas of what this pair of Jordan is worth.
That means there’s money to be saved—and quite a bit of it. Compare the shops, filter by your size, and see where this 3 is actually in stock. A few minutes of comparison can save you more on this pair than an entire month of waiting.